The writing of the history of any science within an individual country is a rash undertaking. The natural sciences, unlike literature, law and theology, pay no regard to national frontiers. The intellectual ancestry, for example, of much Scottish biochemistry can be traced back to England on the one hand and Germany on the other. Where the last quarter of a century is concerned, the problem is compounded by the sheer volume and variety of research carried on, even in a country as small and poor as Scotland, and by the number of institutions and individuals engaged in it. To be comprehensive, to attempt to do justice to everyone and to every laboratory, would be an impossible undertaking.